


It's All in the Cards- Wheel of Fortune Reversed

by mphelmsman



Series: It's all in the Cards [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Big Brother Mycroft, M/M, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Mycroft Feels, No Incest, POV Mycroft Holmes, Post-His Last Vow, Post-Season/Series 03, Pre-Johnlock, Protective Mycroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 03:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4375322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mphelmsman/pseuds/mphelmsman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft watches and decided it's time to change things. He has sinned against his brother enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All in the Cards- Wheel of Fortune Reversed

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Letters from Sussex - Draft](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4147626) by [sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound). 



> I want to restate that these prompts are from cards randomly drawn from my Robin Woods Tarot Deck. So, whatever happens is as much dictated by the draw of the card as well as a (random?) plot that seems to be forming. Truly I'm as unsure of the details about where this is headed as the rest of you. Other than that I truly believe that John and Sherlock belong together. It's becoming quite a fun ride isn't it?

The Wheel of Fortune whether upright or reversed all speaks of karmic associations and reactions. In science there is the law that in every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In spiritual matters the same holds true except often the reaction is multiplied three or nine times and that the reaction is not opposite. In karma you do not get bad for good. You get exactly what you have sent out to the universe sent right back into your face and multiplied. This can even spill over from one life into another. When the Wheel of Fortune shows in a reading it is an excellent time to contemplate exactly how you are treating other people and yourself because you are going to see it come back at you; sooner rather than later. But also remember that the Wheel of Fortune is quite literal a symbol; it is a wheel and therefor it's nature is to turn. And you have the ability to not make old mistakes again. In your hands is the ability to change oneself and therefore change the World.

  
  


Mycroft looked over the banks of monitors, his eyes flicking between several but lingering on two in particular. These showed the sitting room of 221B Baker street where Sherlock sat in apparent contemplation and the other was placed at a discreet angle in the kitchen where John Watson did the cleaning up from a dinner. Those two held Mycroft's attention as he contemplated the lists of his past sins.

 

The past week had dug up those sins and shoved them into the light in such a way that he could no longer ignore them. And now his head ached with the knowledge that he was the the true progenitor of the tense situation in Baker Street and that of the other monitors who he had assigned a team of analysts; those around the flat where the person known as A.G.R.A. still lived. He had nearly driven that team to the brink of terror before he realized that his fraternal feelings were interfering and let Anthea or whatever she was calling herself this week take control of that operation. 

 

That plan at least was well in hand. They would watch this rogue agent who had managed to get so close to the precious life of his brother until she was delivered of her child. Then they would execute Operation Cuckoo. Mycroft found it highly likely that the child the woman carried had been fathered by John Watson but it would be checked among the battery of post natal tests that were always given a newborn and the results would be in hand in a matter of hours. He need make no other actions until that little mystery had been solved. Or if the situation at Baker Street changed.

 

And again he was brought back to the biggest regret he had of the past decade. Practically from the beginning he had watched his brother intertwine his life with the good doctor and had used every weapon in his arsenal to place limits around the friendship in Sherlock's mind. After the catastrophe with Victor Trevor he had always taken the care to make sure his brother realized that humans were useful in the roles to which you could assign them but getting involved with them could only lead to a mess. After all how could those who did not have even the barest notion of the heights to which genius could reach understand how extraordinary Sherlock Holmes was. No, they could only feel threatened and the threatened human animal could strike out with a ferocity that would put a shark to shame.

 

He had learned long ago how to navigate in those dangerous waters but Sherlock had never managed. The boy had no filters and would not or could not learn to employ them other than in the way of his Work. His personal honesty was brutal and only once had he tried to soften it in any way for someone he thought a friend at Uni. It couldn't last though and eventually the honest deductions flowed again from Sherlock's lips and Trevor had run to save his secrets and personal illusions. It wasn't six months after that the worst of Sherlock's overdoses occurred and to this day Mycroft could never be sure whether it was accidental or deliberate.

 

When Dr Watson had appeared on the scene Mycroft had taken care to make sure that although Sherlock would be able to live in a sort of domestic contentment with the doctor his brother stayed convinced that the situation was temporary. At the time he had honestly thought that it was what was best and through that whole doomed dance between Moriarty and his brother he made sure that Sherlock was convinced as well. And he made very sure to quash any notion that John Watson be read into Operation Lazarus. The man was an open book and could never had held up to the kind of concealment covert operations called for. Every Time Sherlock faltered Mycroft reminded him of Victor Trevor's brutal abandonment and any further mention of the doctor taking part was put to rest.

 

He truly had not realized the enormity of his mistake until Sherlock had to be rescued the first time while he was in self imposed exile. He had been tracking the sniper who had targeted John Watson on the day Sherlock Fell. The team reported back that the younger Holmes had been nearly skeletal when found; after he had eliminated his target but had not been able to escape the cell that the target was a part of. Mycroft himself had sat by Sherlock's bed when in delirium brought about untended wounds and a horrific case of double pneumonia he had never ceased mumbling to his soldier-doctor.

 

The elder Holmes, who still kept image of the child who had dearly wanted to be a pirate enshrined in his heart, had listened as Sherlock had whole conversations with a John Watson who existed only in his fevered mind. He had broken more than one umbrella handle as he heard Sherlock convince the phantom again and again that he would keep him safe, that he would take on the world as long as John Watson would just be safe. And later in the darkness of night Mycroft wept as Sherlock pleaded for his doctor; convinced that John Watson need only be present and everything in the world would right itself. If to love is to sacrifice then Sherlock Holmes proved in those two years that rarely was anyone loved so ardently as John Hamish Watson.

 

So Mycroft had redoubled his effort to smooth Sherlock's way on his self appointed crusade, finally even going into the field himself to bring his brother home. By then, of course it was too late. The doctor had found himself an apparently safe person to dedicate his life to and all Mycroft could do was repeat the cant he no longer believed himself. Don't get involved, anyone else other than they two were only instruments to a purpose. But secretly he watched Sherlock have entire conversations in his now empty flat with a John Watson who was not there, and one who seemed to be far less kind than the man himself. "If that were possible." Mycroft muttered between clenched teeth in a rare unguarded moment. Watson's behavior since Sherlock's return had bordered on the abusive. But by then Sherlock had made himself a willing target for the doctor's anger and in those one sided conversations that only Mycroft was privy to seemed to truly believe he deserved it.

 

In that way, of course, the events of Christmas day had been no surprise at all. Which of course meant that Mycroft was the true culprit in Magnussen's murder. As such he had no compunction in resurrecting Moriarty on screens all over England to rescue his brother from the terminal mission that was his sentence for murder. He would have taken the sentence on himself at that point if that was the only way to save his brother.

 

The events afterwards, however, had truly surprised him and made a tiny seed of hope start to grow. Less than an 24 hours after Sherlock's plane had landed John Watson was making his way to Baker street and Mycroft had moved heaven and earth to be very sure that Sherlock was there to greet him. Now the two seemed to be in a holding patterns and Mycroft’s regrets clung to him like a second skin.

 

He mused on how it would have been so easy three years ago to stage John Watson's suicide after Sherlock's 'death'. He needn't have even told the man, merely placed an operative close enough to him that the Doctor was drugged and brought in while a suitable note was left in his flat along with a completed will and all the other paraphernalia necessary to prove he had desired to end his existence. The state of the doctor's bedsit at the time wouldn't have required much at all and it would not have been the first time Mycroft had arranged such an affair. 

 

Then Mycroft could have read the man in and either sent him into the field with Sherlock, they made an excellent working team in the field, or perhaps better he could have re trained the Doctor to be Sherlock's contact and handler from a distance. That might have been the best choice of all. Watson would have never allowed his brother to rush planning no matter the operation and his voice on the other end of a encrypted phone line would have kept Sherlock far less erratic. 

 

Well, he hadn't done either of these things and now he had this situation. John and Sherlock carefully dancing around each other at Baker Street with the delicacy of those who attempt to cross sun warmed ice and across town was a ruthless assassin who had probably made no move only because she was too pregnant to do so. But Mycroft had her history in hand now and had drawn out all sorts of action plans depending on her movements. She was constantly watched, not just by cameras but in every way he could manage to have eyes on her. He had even recruited Janine Hawkins after informing her of exactly who had injured her. The girl made an astonishingly able operative, inveigling herself back into Ms. Morstan's friendship without a hitch, although Mycroft was in two minds about her effectiveness. According to the file A.G.R.A had been able to hold deep cover for up to a decade at a time. 

  
Still, at the present moment Mycroft Holmes could do nothing about A.G.R.A. until it was known as a certainty who the father of her child really was. But before him in the cameras that had been installed in Baker Street by order of Lady Smallwood he could see how his past sins still restrained two men who did not deserve such from him. It was more than time that he owned up to those actions that had so injured his little brother and John Watson. It was time to change the path that Sherlock seemed bent upon. Mycroft had been wrong after all; Sherlock had never been doomed to live unloved. Knowing he could not act himself in this matter he picked up his his most secure phone and placed a call. This problem should be in more experienced hands than his.

**Author's Note:**

> I am unsure exactly which particular pair of hands Mycroft is speaking about so I encourage suggestions in the comments. I'll probably be checking them quite a bit and that may delay the next chapter until the way becomes clear. I'm sort of hoping some of you lovely people make a suggestion that fires my inspiration.


End file.
